Design and dynamics simulations of small scale solid oxide fuel cell tri-generation system

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the design of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) tri-generation system that consists of an SOFC-combined heat and power subsystem, an adsorption refrigeration subsystem, and coupling devices between the two subsystems. Whereas typical extant designs use absorption techniques, the proposed design employs adsorption refrigeration. In this paper, the dynamics of adsorption refrigeration are reported in detail to evaluate the feasibility of the tri-generation system design. The design of the coupling devices and instrumentation strategies of the overall system are discussed in detail. Simulation results indicate that the proposed SOFC tri-generation system can output 4.35 kW of electrical power, 2.448 kW of exhaust heat power, and 1.348 kW of cooling power. The energy efficiency is 64.9%, and the coefficient of performance of the refrigeration is 0.32. Varying the electrical output power results in the variation of exhaust heat power but not the cooling power; varying the cooling power affects the exhaust heat power but not the electrical power. These favorable features can be attributed to the proposed heat exchange sequence and active temperature controls of the system.